Eveline
Eveline is the fourth short story in James Joyce's Dubliners. Characters Eveline Hill - a 19-year-old woman in Dublin. Struggling with decision to elope. Frank - Sailor and lover of Eveline. Trying to convince her to run away with him to live in Buenos Aires. Mr. Hill - Eveline's drunken and abusive father. Harry Hill - Eveline's older brother. Working in the church decorating business. Ernest Hill - Eveline's deceased brother. Synopsis The young Eveline Hill sits at her window, watching people passing through the streets. Before the roads had been paved, the space was occupied by a field, in which children would frolic and play every evening. A man from Belfast, however, bought the property and began to develop it, building houses across the landscape. It is revealed that Eveline is visiting her childhood home for the first time in many years. The objects within the house are all covered in dust from years of neglect. She recalls how she used to dust the entire house once a week for so many years, finding it hard to believe how it could have possibly reached its present condition. She reveals that she is trying to decide whether or not to run away from home with a man. She worries about what sort of gossip the women at the drug stores would tell about her elopement. How she was a fool, for being charmed out of her comfortable life by a man she barely knew. On the other hand, though, she fantasizes of an escape to an exotic foreign country from her current monotonous life. There, she thinks. she would be married, and respected, and happy. She reveals that she has an abusive father, yet another explanation for her desire to escape. Her father did not favor her as he did her two brothers, Harry and Ernest. Ernest had died, and Harry was often away on business, leaving Eveline alone with her resentful and abusive father. She would have trouble finding money for her Saturday nights. Her wage of seven shillings was not sufficient, and though Harry would send up some money from time to time, she could never get any mother from her father, who said that she squandered her money and was foolish. He would give her money with the condition that she would buy Sunday's dinner while she was out, usually costing all of the money he allowed her. Truly, she lives an incredibly stressful and hard life. But now, she was planning on escaping all of that, and sailing away with Frank, a young man she had recently met, to Buenos Aires to marry him. Eveline considers her decision, holding two letters in her lap, one to Harry, and one to her father. She begins to remember how her father had been very kind and loving while her mother was still alive, and realized that he would miss her. While she is remembering the life she had with her family, Eveline hears the music of a street organ, which reminds her of her mother's death. Fearing the possibility of suffering the same horrible fate as her mother, Eveline decides for sure that she will escape with Frank. However, as she is about to board the ship at the dock, Eveline has a moment of reconsideration. She is fearful one again, and when Frank tries to lead her up to the ship, she resists. She clings to the guard rails while Frank is slowly pushed onto the boat by the hurrying crowd. As he continually shouts for her to "Come!" she merely looks at him with "no sign of love or farewell or recognition."